Sunday, January 03, 2010

Three tiger attacks jolt Chandrapur, 2 killed

Three tiger attacks jolt Chandrapur, 2 killed

Ashwin Aghor / DNA Thursday, December 31, 2009 0:19 IST

Mumbai: After a lull in the man-animal conflict in Chandrapur district, three incidents of tiger attacks in less than 10 days recently have set the forest department thinking. The incidents have occurred in three villages located within a radius of 10sq km near the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve.

The first incident was reported at Pendhri village on December 19 when a woman, identified as Sharda Keshav Rajanhire, 30, was killed when she had gone to collect firewood in survey number 140 of the Pendhri beat of the tiger reserve. The body was partially eaten by the animal.

On December 23, a tiger injured a man from Mane Mohadi, and on December 28 morning, a woman identified as Dhrupada Patwari Mankar, 60, a resident of Shivani village, was killed.

“There is a record of presence of three tigers in the area as it is close to the tiger reserve. We have taken precautions to safeguard both people and the wildlife in the area,” said SL Thavre, divisional forest officer, Chandrapur. The forest department has put up boards at many places warning people of tiger presence, apart from distributing handbills and frequent awareness drives.

However, another senior forest officer said: “This is certainly alarming. The fact that tiger attacks are taking place repeatedly indicates that the tiger is fast turning into be problem animal.”

Forest officials feel that this could be the beginning of the yet another series man-animal conflict after November 2007 when the a tiger was shot dead near Govindpur in Chandrapur district after it had allegedly killed over 23 people.

“As the first step,” the officer said, “the forest department should beef up patrolling to gather detailed information about the animal.”